PhD Researcher - Participation & Inclusion in Urban Heat Resilience

The Faculty Social Sciences & Solvay Business School, Department Communicatiewetenschappen, Research Group Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

You will join the Horizon Europe project EUROASIS (EUROpean Adaptive, Systemic and Inclusive Solutions for heat resilience), a 4-year, 29-partner consortium funded under the EU Cities Mission, starting October 2026. EUROASIS strengthens the capacity of regional and local authorities to anticipate, manage and recover from extreme heat, testing system innovations (such as climate shelters, urban heat digital twins, nature-based solutions) across 11 European cities (Amsterdam, Zaragoza, Athens, Reggio Emilia) and 7 replicator regions (including Mechelen, Belgium).

SMIT leads the project's Societal Engagement work packages, laying the foundations for effective community engagement and co-creation of solutions across the pilot and replicator cities. Your PhD will examine participation in this urban heat-resilience context, with the participation of vulnerable groups in society as a central theme. The exact focus will be shaped together with your supervisors.

What you'll be doing in the project

• Year 1 – Building the foundations: reviewing how justice and equity frameworks are applied to heat-stress policy, and co-developing future scenarios for heat-resilient cities through co-creation workshops with stakeholders in each pilot city.
• Years 1–3 – Setting up inclusive engagement: designing the methodology for "Community Labs" and developing strategies to recruit and engage vulnerable and marginalised groups (elderly, youth, low-income residents) in each city, alongside participatory (digital) data-collection tools.
• Years 3–4 – Delivering and evaluating impact: supporting citizen data collection in the Community Labs, coordinating cross-city knowledge transfer, and conducting a final justice and equity impact assessment.

Your specific tasks

• Conducting a literature review on participatory methodologies for technological or social innovation, and on justice and equity for vulnerable groups (specifically related to sustainable and liveable cities, and the challenge of heat resilience).
• Applying qualitative and quantitative research methods: interviews, focus groups, workshops, surveys.
• Setting up participatory processes involving various stakeholders (policy-makers, citizens, academics, etc.), for which you will determine the methodology. Possible forms of participation include citizen science, local citizen participation activities, living labs, etc.
• Developing communication and engagement strategies that make participation in scientific research as inclusive and democratic as possible.
• Formulating policy advice for inclusive, democratic decision-making on sustainable and liveable cities, with a particular focus on heat stress.
• Reporting and presenting findings in academic publications and at (inter)national conferences.
• Writing and publishing scientific journal articles.
• Completing a PhD dissertation based on the project's outcomes.

For this function, our Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene) will serve as your home base.